Unperceived electrical signals delivered to the brain can improve mathematical skills in college students, a new study found.
Researchers say the technology isn’t far from being unprepared for home use, but one expert emphasized that more research is needed.
In the new study, the researchers recruited 72 students from Oxford University. Researchers evaluated volunteer mathematics skills on tests before splitting students into abilities that matched them into three subgroups. In other words, each group had a mixture of people with weaker and stronger mathematical skills.
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For the experiment, individuals in each group placed electrodes on the scalp that could provide mild electrical signals to the brain. The two groups were stimulated either to the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) or to the posterior parietal cortex (PPC). This is a brain area associated with mathematical ability in previous research. The third group was fake inspiration.
The team then applied transcranial random noise stimulation (TRNS). This is just one of many types of non-invasive brain stimulation, but it is known to be more comfortable than other options. The current passing through the scalp is very low.
“Most people don’t feel that they’re being stimulated or not,” said Roy Cohen Cuduch, a neuroscientist at the University of Surrey. Each participant in the treated group received a 150-minute stimulation combined with a mathematics test on a five-day test.
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This test evaluated students’ calculation skills and “drill learning.” Computational learning requires existing mathematical skills and requires participants to pose tasks to solve the answers to the presented problems. In contrast, drill learning does not require mathematical ability, instead asking users to remember a set of equations presented to them.
Based on previous research, the authors hypothesized that DLPFC stimuli enhance computational learning as this field is associated with new skills and high levels of cognition. On the other hand, we thought that stimulating PPC could enhance drill learning by processing searches for skills already learned. This study found that DLPFC stimuli were indeed linked to improved computational power, whereas PPC stimuli did not improve drill learning.
Before the test began, the team measured the connectivity of participants’ front and parietal lobes, located in the front and top of the brain. These two lobes are DLPFC and PPC parts, respectively, and work together during mathematics learning. The team hypothesized that having a strong connection between the two lobes would be linked to stronger computational learning. This was supported by the data. At baseline, the team observed stronger connections among participants with better mathematics.
Those with less connectivity in the fake stimulus group had more difficulty grasping computational problems than those with more connectivity in the same group. However, individuals with weak connections that stimulated DLPFC showed the greatest improvement in scores.
In particular, a small previous study the team undertaken in a cohort of mathematics professors showed that stimuli actually worsen performance of their strengths on mathematics tests. This suggests that people who already have high mathematical skills should avoid stimulation.
“It’s the best system,” Kadshu said of the mathematics professor’s brain. “You enter new noise into it, it will cause a harmful effect.”
Kadosh is the co-founder of brain stimulation company Cognite Neurotechnology and is optimistic about deploying technology to the public. Kadshu said people in the university, workplace and training centre can all benefit from it. He added that he is interested in expanding his technology to people with learning difficulties such as attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and neurodevelopmental disorders.
Meanwhile, Songjui Lim, a psychologist at Binghamton University who was not involved in the study, said similar stimulation devices have already been cleared for home use, but an analysis examining how well they are working has revealed that more research is needed.
Lim added that such devices need to be personalized to individual users to reflect differences in brain shape. “When targeting stimulating a particular brain region, it may not necessarily work that well unless you actually take into account the anatomy of the individual people’s brain,” she said.
Kadosh also said that consumer devices born from the research should be fixed to solid evidence, and argued that many existing consumer brain stimulation devices have little scientific evidence. “We need to show that we can use this technology at home,” he said.
Editor’s Note: This story was updated on July 2nd to revise the spelling of Sung-Joo Lim’s name.
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